The former head of an Idaho public housing authority was sentenced to five years of probation for federal program theft after embezzling $129,022.38 from his agency.
Bruce Hauber, 72, was employed as the executive director of the federally funded American Falls Housing Authority (AFHA) from 2019 to 2023, and his duties included paying bills, purchasing supplies, collecting rent, and managing bank accounts.
According to the charges brought against him, Hauber began to make purchases on AFHA credit cards in the spring of 2019 for unauthorized personal expenses, such as meals, airplane tickets, utilities for his home, medical expenses, and purchases at retailers. To conceal the embezzlement, Hauber wrote fictitious checks to venders and entered the checks into AFHA’s internal accounting system.
Chief US District Judge David C. Nye also ordered Hauber to pay $79,022.38 in restitution and imposed eight months of home detention with location monitoring as a condition of probation.
Special Agent in Charge Machelle Jindra with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General stated, “Hauber deliberately orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to embezzle more than $125,000 in federal funds designated to provide housing assistance for elderly and disabled residents in American Falls, Idaho—a community of roughly, 4,500 people. The theft was especially harmful given the limited resources available to support the community.”
